THREE YEARS AGO
Michael and Katherine are seven
I never opened doors. Maybe out of fear. Maybe just out of respect of my grandmother and her fear of finding my brother. Some doors I really wished I had opened, like the one to the basement. Others, well...I wish I never did. Grandma has always kept me safe and away from my brother. When I was coloring at the dinner table he was sent to his room. When I was playing in the yard and he was staring, grandma pulled him away from it and closed the blinds. Besides those slight glimpses of him, I never talked to him. I tried to at dinner sometimes but grandma scolded me for it. And my brother usually remained silent. I could never tell if he was disappointed or maybe in fact really did not like me. I have feelings sometimes which twist my gut. Random thoughts when I lay in bed and nightmares instead of dreams.
A man with horns. On repeat sometimes. I even find him back in my drawings. Grandma usually throws those away. I am sad about that but at the same time happy. Those drawings scare me. Just as in now, where Michael stands in the door opening as grandma has gone taking something for me. Our eyes meet but we remain silent. Until he opens his mouth.
''Grandma should have let you keep those drawings.''
''You should go,'' I tell him. ''If grandma finds out you are here she is going to send you back upstairs and not make you leave your room.''
''She can't stop me,'' he resists. ''Us.''
''Leave me alone.''
''Michael!'' Grandma's voice comes from behind him. She instantly grabbed him by the arm before looking at me. ''Why were you talking to him?''
''I told him to leave.'' My eyes widen, as grandma has never raised her voice towards me, only to my brother.
''She hates us Katherine,'' my brother says as grandma pulls him away. ''She doesn't like you as much as she doesn't like me. She lies.''
Michael and grandma are already up the stairs as he said the last thing. I keep standing there, slightly in shock but also in confusion. Sometimes he really scares me. Yet then I realize that he speaks the truth. That he is my twin. They say twins usually feel each other's pain, or see what they see when it comes to trauma. Maybe that is just a weird fairy tale being told. What if it was the truth? What if the man with horns I am seeing, he is seeing too?